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Taki thought it over and decided to share her belated thoughts on what she liked and disliked about this exp:
Definite likes:
• Atmosphere. Great setting, interesting story. Also, as it happened, almost all the main plot content unexpectedly fell to me right from the start. One could argue that Heroist and Yashchur weren't left out either, but in my opinion, I got more. Here you have everything: the first direct clash with the chthonic forest (the block about Makhra after Ida was knocked out counts, sort of, but Yashchur already knew before then, so the top of unexpected twists failed), the expedition from fighters to scholars, two encounters with the rector (one unpleasant), and the final block up to the settlement of the forest fanatics. Essentially, I am the only one whose character visited all the settlements instead of sitting at home being a shut-in!
• Level transfer to a new char if the player's character dies. I don't know if what happened with Revan was a bug or a feature? But if it's a feature, then 10 out of 10. It's very frustrating to start as an absolute loser when you've seemingly already achieved something, and then your hero dies, and after that, it's either a drop or being a loser again. I like this kind of mechanic.
• Progression system. The motivation from weak nobodies to honored citizens of the settlement with stronger skills seemed interesting to me. This well covers players' ignorance of certain features and lore mechanics. Otherwise, it's strange to see a power-gamer who dashes in place like a kitten. True, while this is cool at the start, I will describe the same progression issues that I consider weak points further on.
• Beauty rating based on character art according to the Mage Guild's subjective taste with the ability to level it up. This might sound ridiculous and theoretically like a flaw, but no. I never liked it when beauty was put into one of the characteristics, and in most cases, you had to sacrifice valuable stats just to avoid becoming a local freak. It's especially stupid when players set beauty to 1 with an appearance of 8 out of 10 or higher, simply so as not to lose stats.
• The bums. They are wonderful! If they hadn't kicked the bucket in the snowstorm and had reached the rector with us, we definitely would have smashed that monster together.
• Sarabas. I understand he was asking for it and annoyed the Mage Guild, but it was a magnificent roleplay. No matter how hard I tried with my own RP, Sarabas is the best character. Things got awkward with Lerad, of course, but since there's a total imba there, the outcome was inevitable. But he didn't back down in the moment, stood up for himself, and wasn't afraid to kick it even at the laboratory stage — a real stud, forever one of my favorites.
By the way, it was also not obvious to me that Lerad was supposed to carry the bloody cum. To me, it would have been logical for the alchemists to carry it. If the guy had paid Sarabas, popped some cum, and become an NEH, and Lerad had ordered the failed expeditionary to clean up this shit — I would have understood. But as it stands, Sarabas was actually screwed over.
And some questions for the Mage Guild, what would happen if:
1. Sarabas popped the cum instead of the alchemist? Would he become an NEH himself? Or would his plot line with the sausage have been successful?
2. Sarabas brought the sludge to Lerad? Would he have become his confidant and potentially received the coolest plot line?
Caused doubts:
• A complex and confusing combat system almost always with guaranteed losses. And to avoid these losses, you need not only a ton of heals but also a guy with bombs. Better two. And a max-level healer to res important characters at the end of the fight.
I didn't like how easily various supermen like Utar, Makhra, and Horus are simply taken out by a couple of hits, which for enemies are almost always successful, and in some cases always. Well, in the case of Makhra and Utar, as is now known, it's not a bug but a feature, but nevertheless. I caught a massive wave of demoralization from this. And overall, this is specifically my problem, but I've always been weak in combat during exps. But here it's just wild hardcore. By the way, the fact that a fully leveled alchemist can use potions in battle isn't actually written anywhere; it only became clear through a separate dialogue branch before Utar's death.
• Special treatment of specific players. In the case of Sarabas and Revan, I can understand and forgive from the perspective of leadership skill and magnificent roleplay; the character's charisma is 10 out of 10. With Aristarkh and Yashchur, I had some moments of frustration. For example, the aforementioned event with Sirin. When Aristarkh says "no" to her whims — he calmly moves on. When Ida says "no" to her whim — boom, you get a naked Utar, Makhra wasting bombs, and to top it off, vile creatures attack you. In the end, your already terrified heroine is tried to be sent into slavery in a witch's harem, but a local alpha-hag intervenes and your character sort of forgets the nuances related to the witch, but the bad aftertaste remains. At the time, this pissed me off, but I looked for justification in the fact that it was because Clarissa had sent him. But as it turns out, it's actually because Yashchur was on a special list.
In short, Ida ended up not only being the most psychologically traumatized character, but at some point, the plot rails pushed her into an orgy. In principle, I already said that I don't mind sex scenes if everything is consensual, but overall, it felt like I didn't even have a choice. By the way, I expected that later I'd have to put Ida under Utar too, and was even mentally okay with it. But then this twist happened with a mega-difficult fight involving loss. By the way, it's also very sad about the brothers; I had plans for them!
• Progression system. Paradoxically, yes, yes. I didn't like that over 250+ pages of game absolutely no one moved beyond being shameful losers. Reading and writing skills along with alchemy turned out to be complete unplayable garbage. I can't brew anything, I can't give anything to anyone. Reading and writing provide half of nothing. I just have the Mage Guild's plot rails, because any attempt to go beyond them results in Ida being told to fuck off on all fronts. Unless I missed a quest for the skeleton in the burial grounds, but it seems Revan had better luck with him.
In short, it's a bit sad that in the end we only progressed to second ranks in the Clans, and not even everyone. I understand there was a lot of content planned for the game, but we have what we have.
• Minor flaws. Well, everything is already clear about the spoiled food, but with heals it also turned out not so great. A single line like "healing potions are given only to those directly participating in combat" would have been enough to justify why heals were given to everyone except Ida and Aristarkh. Otherwise, it really felt like since we have our own, we can fuck off. Some people might perceive this neutrally, but for some, it stung. Still, it would have been interesting to see how it would look if we hadn't previously spent our own hard-earned money and had gone "empty".
Again, the request from Tsulak to share a heal also turned out not so great. Yes, the script assumed everyone would lose one vial; we couldn't have known that. But then his well-groomed brothers shared heals with Ida, whom they barely know, while their own same-kind Tsulak gets half of nothing. It's as if the brotherhood traded a close buddy for a potential chance to look under a skirt... Wait, okay, that's actually quite realistic.
Overall, for me, an exp is first and foremost not about fights, not about super-cool power-gamer players to whom the whole world must submit or conversely losers who are humiliated by the game-world in every hole. For me, it is primarily the synergy of the Mage Guild's and players' imagination. Everything was fine with that here; I liked it. Astral didn't overdo it too much; you can tell he tried very hard on the game, it's a pity that one mistake ruined the whole thing.
Thanks to everyone for the game. I enjoyed following every player.
Initially there was very little Nebk, but hollow-headed Zaya turned out to be a cutie.
With Yashchur's departure, the game became empty. Although I don't understand him in all aspects, overall he played normally; Aristarkh's story was turning out interesting, the Mage Guild gave him a lot of content, even if mostly unexpectedly non-plot related. But thanks to the special treatment, he had the potential to become one of the significant scholars.
I've already said everything about Sarabas; there was too little of Roselia. I don't know what Nebo disliked so much about her?
Tsulak is essentially the only one who became Ida's friend. If they had gone further, she would have definitely shared heals with him
Technically, Volki could also have become Ida's friend, but I had too little content with the Mage Guild's character.
Khryashch was the second most interesting character for me, and with Sarabas's death, he became the first. His pure spirit of adventure captured my heart.
